Waterloo Engineering alumnus helps build online initiative to get more Canadians vaccinated
Josh Kalpin started out just trying to protect his own friends and family from COVID-19.
A month later, the Waterloo Engineering alumnus has helped thousands of people across the country get shots in the arm as a core volunteer for a Twitter account that spreads the word on available vaccine appointments.
Vaccine Hunters Canada has grown to more than 140,000 followers and is now partnering directly with some health agencies to help people find open slots and boost vaccine uptake by matching demand with supply.
Josh Kalpin graduated from the software engineering program at the University of Waterloo in 2016.
Kalpin (BSE ’16), a software engineer in Toronto for financial technology company Square, had no idea how the service would take off when he offered to help after coming across it in his own search for vaccine appointments.
Now it’s “like a second full-time job” and he has done interviews with reporters across the country to promote the account and help ensure available vaccine slots don’t go unfilled.
“We’re saving lives – and a lot of them,” Kalpin says. “I think that summarizes the impact pretty well.”
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